The invention relates to color processing and, more particularly, to reproducing colors from a source device using a destination device.
Many devices exist for producing color images. For example, in computer systems, monitors and printers produce color images and scanners measure color images. Monitors and scanners often use tricoordinate, e.g., red (R), green (G), and blue (B), color systems to implement a gamut of colors. These devices are thus said to be “RGB” devices. Because monitors emit light to produce colors, monitors are also called emissive devices. Some devices, such as printers, use four colors, e.g., cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) to produce colors. These devices are called “CMYK” devices. Because these devices produce colors by depositing inks to absorb light, these devices are called absorptive devices.
It is often desirable to take the color image displayed, stored, or measured by one device, the “source” device, and reproduce that image using another device, the “destination” device. For example, computer system users may want to reproduce an image that is displayed on a monitor, the source device, by printing that image on paper using a printer, the destination device. The source and destination devices, however, may associate different colors with the same device coordinates (e.g., RGB), or may have different formats of device coordinates (e.g., RGB vs. CMYK) to characterize colors. Thus, to reproduce colors the source device coordinates are typically converted into destination device coordinates. It is desirable to convert these colors quickly and accurately so that the destination device quickly produces an image that looks like the image from the source device.